


You Speak of Fate

by nectarimperial



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: Angst, M/M, Teenage BS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 06:51:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3968557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nectarimperial/pseuds/nectarimperial
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Jude wondered if this was what love felt like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Speak of Fate

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what I'm writing anymore. I barely take myself seriously at this point hahaah.

Sometimes, Jude wondered if this was what love felt like. 

*  
  
Did love feel like denial? Was love supposed to feel like a dull ache in his chest the first time Alvin looked at him? Was it supposed to feel like all the emotions he shoved into the pit of his stomach the first time Alvin tossed a grin over his shoulder, brown hair fluttering around his face, eyes blazing with such intensity Jude thought he was going to get swallowed whole? 

“If they catch you, you’ll face,” Alvin said, leaning close to Jude’s ear, “execution.” 

It sent a shudder down Jude’s spine, but he rationalized that maybe it’s only the heat of the moment, military mobilizing behind them.

After all, he didn’t know anything about love. 

*

He didn’t know anything about love when he’d straddled Alvin’s hips in the Sharilton Inn, pressing his lips feverishly against his strong jaw, hands tugging on the lapels of his coat. Pulling away, Jude looked at his face and reached a hand up to touch his cheeks, Alvin turning away looking at the ground.  
  
“Look kid, I found a new employer—I’m not going with you,” Alvin said and wrapped his arms around Jude’s waist, burying his face in his shoulder. Jude didn’t bothering moving and let his body go limp, supported by Alvin’s strong grip.

Biting back tears, Jude leaned forward and rested his head on Alvin’s chest. Maybe love felt like anger. Maybe love felt like the anger that surged through his body when he thought about the journey ahead of him without Alvin at his side. Without the familiarity and the warmth and the gentle touches when he thought no one was looking.  
  
Maybe love isn’t love after all. Maybe it’s only anger.  
  
*  
  
But his anger faded into the crashing waves of the Leronde shore as Jude sat at the edge of the pier waiting for Milla to heal, waiting for good news, waiting for something to happen to break him out of those stagnant days spent at his family’s clinic.

So he came up with excuses. He came up with a million and one scenarios played out in his head down to the last minute detail that could’ve stopped Alvin from leaving. Stopped him from walking away. Stopped him from turning his back on him and shutting him out.  
  
At least it was passing the time.  
  
Resting his head on his knees drawn to his chest, Jude watched the sun disappear behind the skyline until Leia came to fetch him for dinner.  
  
“You okay?” She asked, sitting on the pier next to him. In the distance, Jude saw the darkening horizon of Fennmont and remembered Alvin again, felt the dull ache in his chest as painful as it had been before.  
  
_Do you know what love feels like?_  
  
“Yeah, I’ll be right in.”  
  
Because Jude knew the answer. Love was the bargaining between the reality he had to live and the fiction he wanted to become his truth.

* 

And sometimes, his fantasies only lasted him so long. Sometimes he cycled through denial and anger like he was on repeat, his body only reacting to the same emotions, but he figured that was part of Alvin’s charm.  
  
He’d come back into his life and Jude would stop convincing himself that he could’ve done something to make things better—to make things right. And the progression repeated itself: _denial_ that he wanted something more from the older man, and _anger_ when it didn’t work.  
  
His excuses and his rationalizations grew worse. His scenarios faltered. His resolve broke when Alvin would kiss him and walk away every chance he had, like it was the most ordinary thing in the world. And he’d be left with his thoughts, wondering why things couldn’t be—why they weren’t different.  
  
_‘So you want to stay with her forever, then.’_ Alvin hissed at the Xailen Woods Temple. It hurt, it stung, and it reminded him that sometimes there aren’t any possibilities for the future he wanted.

 _‘You can’t just count on destiny to work everything out for you. Fate doesn’t have your back.’_  
  
It’s all he remembered sitting on the top of those steps, biting back tears. He thought of asking Alvin if he knew what love felt like, but he never had the chance. So instead he buried his face in his arms and felt lost. Alvin’s words stung. Like Alvin had held his chin in his hands and pressed their lips together and shot him, each betrayal a bullet, lodged like shrapnel in his shattered heart.  
  
And despite this, his feelings only grew stronger. Perhaps love was the broken despondency pooling in the bottom of his malfunctioning soul.  
  
Looking at the night sky though the windows at the front of the temple, he wondered where acceptance fit into this. He wondered if it’d ever come or if he’d ever be able to say:  
  
_I love you._

Because love felt like heartache. Because with Alvin, love and grief went hand in hand. He couldn’t have one without the other.

**Author's Note:**

> Uwahh, thank you ; 3;


End file.
